Rafael Stern

Rabbi Raphael (Rafi) Stern is a senior rabbinic educator (R”M) at the Bar-Ilan University Institute for Advanced Torah Studies (Machon HaGavoah LeTorah, also known as the Jesselson Institute). He has served for many years as part of the institute’s core Beit Midrash faculty and currently heads the institute’s Havruta Program, an initiative centered on intensive paired Talmudic study and advanced Torah learning.

Rabbi Stern is associated with the distinctive Religious-Zionist academic environment of Bar-Ilan University, which integrates university education with high-level Torah scholarship. Within this framework, he has taught generations of students in areas of Talmud, halakhic analysis, and Jewish civil law. His work reflects the broader educational ethos of the institute: combining rigorous traditional learning with engagement in modern professional and academic life.

Over the years, Rabbi Stern has published numerous halakhic and analytical essays in leading Torah journals and collections, including publications connected to Bar-Ilan University and other Religious-Zionist institutions. His writings focus especially on areas of Hoshen Mishpat (Jewish civil law), commercial ethics, evidence, signs and identification in halakha, kashrut, contractual conditions, and questions arising from modern economic and technological realities.

Among his better-known books is Tov Sachrah (“Good Commerce”), a study of ethics and commerce in Jewish law. Another major work is Shimeni KaHotam (“Set Me as a Seal”), a large-scale halakhic treatment of signs, forgery, visual identification, seals, testimony, and related legal principles in halakha. His books are catalogued in Israeli bibliographic and academic collections and are used within advanced Torah-study circles.